She said in a low voice, “We know it’s you who did it.” She added quickly, “And we have evidence.”
A beat of silence before Miranda shook her head, her angelic face pale with hurt incredulity. “How can you utter such lies?”
“It’s not a lie. And we just thought we would like to give you a chance to confess what you’ve done rather than have the enforcers take you away.” Zari paused before saying meaningfully, “Before your Master finds out the truth.” It was a shot in the dark. If Miranda’s Master was somehow behind the murder, then she had just given herself away.
The other girl didn’t answer, simply shaking her head like a dejected pup.
When Zari and Rhapsody turned away, Miranda’s friends immediately crowded around her.
“They’re still glaring at us, aren’t they?” Zari said under her breath to Rhapsody as they reached the end of the road.
Rhapsody nodded. “You lied to her, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I did.”
“Why?” The other’s girl was quizzical.
“I wanted her to panic. Guilty people tend to give themselves away when they panic.”
“Ah.” Rhapsody nodded. When they reached her dorm, the other girl gave Zari a curtsy. “Thank you for helping me, Lady Zari.”
The sudden formality threw her off, and Zari hurriedly curtsied back. “It’s, err, no problem.”
“I will write to my Master,” she told Zari in a still-serious voice. “I will ask him what I can do for you, as a way of showing my gratitude.”
And then the other girl turned away and left before Zari could think of what to say. She found herself smiling as she walked back to her dorm. Perhaps…perhaps she had just made her first friend in school. It would come in handy, especially considering what had recently happened between her and her Master.
On her way to the dorm, Zari noticed new announcements pinned to the community board. She stopped in front of it. The last time she had failed to read the latest news, she ended up violating a new rule and landed in detention because of it.
Please Welcome Our New Doctor!
Oh, finally, Mrs. Humphreys, the nurse at the infirmary, had an actual doctor to help her out. It was good news…until Zari saw the name of the doctor.
Katarina?
Surely…surely it was just a coincidence. Right?
Chapter Six
Demons surrounded them, waiting, hissing, glaring. In other words, it was just another day of hunting. Or it was except for the fact that this time, Alexandru was not alone. Accompanying him was the Duke of Brimstone himself, Silviu Draghici – the strongest half-demon in the world. And of course, where Silviu went, his Galeré went as well.
“What,” Mihail, Alexandru’s brother, asked as he turned to the demon duke, “do you think about before you go hunting?”
Silviu shrugged. “The usual. To kill as many demons as I can.”
Mihail glanced at Adrijan, and the half-Cetus said, “That it will be over as soon as possible.”
“Before you even ask me,” Ilie, the shapeshifter, drawled, “I always think of the same thing.”
His friends said in unison, “You want to fuck.”
Ilie’s sharp teeth flashed in the darkness. “Exactly.”
Alexandru suddenly sensed all eyes on him, making him pause from wiping his sword clean. Without looking up from his task, he murmured, “Who else?”
Mihail’s tone was careful when he asked, “You truly think of her that much?”
“There’s never a second I don’t.”
Another day of unsuccessful hunting comes to an end, Alexandru thought as his men came back to report to him. He had assigned each of them a part of the town to scour, hoping that their combined presence would force their target out of hiding.
But looking at his men’s faces, he knew that none of them would have good news to share.
Even so, he asked, “Not a damn thing?” This demon, whoever it was, might already be aware of Zari’s presence. And if that was so, then Alexandru would kill him, even if it required him to go to hell and back. What mattered was keeping his pet safe.
“It’s probably found a host,” one of his men answered.
Alexandru nodded. “We’ll just have to try harder tomorrow.”
His men bowed to him before they left, blending into the darkness before disappearing completely. In a second, he was alone in the forest, but Alexandru could feel it in his guts – the demon wasn’t that far away. Like sensed like, and they both shared the same beast inside them. The only difference was Alexandru had found a way to anchor himself in goodness. The demon, however, had allowed itself to be swallowed by its inner beast.
Every time he finished hunting, he would call out to her. It had started as a way to reassure her he was alive. Eventually, it had become his way of staying in touch, one he continued to do faithfully throughout the centuries, even if she had never replied. Not after they had parted.